Kind summed up the black humour in this all too short
collection by new Manchester writer, Stephen James when autographing this
collection instead of signing it in his name, he autographed it ‘all the best,
Charles Bukowski’ as reading a lot of his stuff when I was younger, I
definitely read somewhere Bukowski up to me when he would sign other names into
his book sometimes just to confuse people.
This doesn’t mean of course that Stephen wrote this in a fit
of drunken stupdour like Bukowski, although the wit is still the same where on
for the first page he starts off with ‘I’m
a poet from Manchester
‘I’m sure
youcan tell
These
rhymes and this rhythm’
Before then doing a P.S. to the piece on the same page
‘I lied,
I’m poet form Wilmslow
I hope you cn’t tell
My dad a
drives a Jaguar
And I’m
going to hell’
Although the Bukowski influence is there certainly in pieces
like All the things I didn’t do yesterday where on the first stanza where he
talks about a baby crying through the doors of the lift, it has a realism which
perhaps not as stark as Bukowski has a subtle charm or humour if you will,
where considering rolling a joint he considers waiting to watch a duckling call
for her duckling before eventually giving totally up and moving on.
What is also impressive is the lack of generic titles in
pieces like ‘The Perks’of having a relationship that you genuinely want to work
and having your life descend into cliché’ where in the first three lines alone,
the detail could easily descend into a novel where he starts off with
‘My life is a bad coming of age novel
the post not quite a break up and now we’ve not quite
made up scene in the trendy coffee shop’
What I particularly like about Stephen’s work within this
booklet is apart from the ideas which make him stand out as a writer to watch
is the way he mixes the mudane into his work with extreme technical cleverly
almost turning reality upside down in some places, requiring re-reading in-between
chuckles, making me realise like Bukowsi at his best that rewrites are needed frequently
just so you can pick up further elements with re-reading.
Excellent.
Samples of Stephen’s work can be read at his blog http://folknwords.tumblr.com/
Copies can be bought for £5 plus P & P from folknwords@yahoo.com
